


I Told Myself That I Wouldn’t Be Scared, But I’m Still Having Nightmares

by CaptainAwesome242



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Claustrophobia, Elevators, Gen, Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Mission, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Trapped In Elevator, Worried Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 18:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14920943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainAwesome242/pseuds/CaptainAwesome242
Summary: Everything that happens to you impacts you in some way, be it big or small, and being trapped under a fallen building is not something you forget overnightOrPeter has a panic attack in a broken down elevator and Tony is there to help him out





	I Told Myself That I Wouldn’t Be Scared, But I’m Still Having Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> So I recently watched Homecoming and I can’t believe I haven’t watched it sooner, I loved it. One part I thought was done really well was the way Peter was genuinely scared and panicking when the building fell on him - it was a stark reminder that he is just a kid. I wanted to explore that a little more and see how it might continue to affect him. I know Tony’s arc reactor would have been removed by this point but for story purposes let’s just say it’s still there.
> 
> Title from Nightmares by All Time Low

Peter jerked awake as the car came to a stop, heat rushing to his cheeks as he realised he’d been asleep on Mr Stark’s shoulder. Embarrassed and mentally cursing himself out, he decided to play it cool and hope no one had noticed, but just as he was running a hand through his hair he caught sight of Happy smirking at him in the rearview mirror. Peter quickly glanced away to Tony, who was rubbing his eyes trying to wake himself up.

“Why have we stopped, Happy? We can’t be there yet?” Tony asked in a voice rough with sleep.

“We’re here,” Happy confirmed.

Peter looked up out of his window to see his apartment building and frowned as he tried to think back to the journey. He remembered getting in the car at the Avengers compound but beyond that not much; he didn’t even remember getting onto the freeway. They had both been completely exhausted after their latest mission with the other Avengers, but Peter was still irritated he hadn’t even managed to stay awake for the journey home.

“What?” Tony asked, squinting out the window. He turned to Happy, “Why did you let us sleep? We were supposed to be thinking up an excuse to tell the kid’s aunt about the bruises,”

“You looked like you needed it, both of you,” the driver answered truthfully.

The two of them had trudged to the car looking like zombies, all but dead to the world. They’d clambered into the back with a muttered instruction from Tony to ‘drop the kid home’ before settling into the padded seats, nodding off to sleep in no time at all. Happy had watched through the rearview mirror as Peter had slowly slumped to his left, further and further until his head came to rest on Tony’s shoulder. Tony stirred, moving to rest his head on top of Peter’s but neither woke and the two of them remained in that position until they’d pulled up outside Peter’s apartment block in Queens. Happy had planned on taking a picture but the kid had woken up the second he’d put the car in park.

“I guess we’ll just have to wing it, kid, let’s go,” Tony sighed, opening the door and climbing out.

The main reason he’d come was to help give credence to whatever excuse Peter decided to tell his aunt May, playing the part of the apologetic boss who hadn’t meant for his intern to get hurt and who was hoping to stay in the boy’s guardian’s good books - the more he thought about it the more he realised it was pretty much the truth.

The other reason, which he’d never admit to, was to make sure the kid got home safe. He had complete faith in Happy but the mission had been rough; things had turned south quickly and it had ended up being a much more dangerous mission than anticipated, leaving the entire team limping back to the compound. Tony knew he would feel a lot better seeing Peter safely home with his own eyes.

Peter joined Tony on the curb moments later, pulling his rucksack off his shoulder to rummage through it to find his keys.

“So, uh, what’s the story we’re going for, Mr Stark? I mean, was I stopping a mugging? Or... oh! How about I broke up a street fight!” he got the door open and the two of them entered, letting it go to slam shut behind them.

“Or how about you walked into a door?” Tony quipped with a smirk.

Peter gave him an offended look, the intensity of which was lessened considerably by the rapidly darkening bruises on his cheekbone and temple. “No way! Aunt May will never believe that. Besides it makes me look stupid,”

As Peter headed for the stairwell he heard the click of a button being pressed behind him, and turned to see that Tony had called for the elevator. The older man cocked an eyebrow as Peter hesitated on the bottom step.

“You’re not seriously gonna take the stairs after the day we’ve had. There’s a perfectly good elevator here,” Tony stated flatly.

Peter shrugged, wincing at the pain in his shoulder, “It’s useless, it breaks down all the time, we’d probably end up stuck,”

The doors opened with a ding and Tony stepped inside, “It seems to be working for now, besides we’re only going... how many floors?”

“Seven,” Peter answered, a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Well then, come on. I’m not taking the stairs,” came Tony’s voice from inside the elevator.

Peter sighed nervously, all traces of sleep gone from his body. He wanted to refuse and take the stairs, but he really didn’t want to have to explain the reason why to Mr Stark, so instead he trained his face into a neutral expression and shuffled into the tiny box, the doors sliding ominously shut. Almost immediately he felt his chest constrict and his breathing become shallow and despite his best efforts to combat it he could feel the panic building. He swallowed thickly, staring at a fixed point in front of him and willing the ride to be over as soon as possible. He was vaguely aware of Tony speaking to him but he felt like he was underwater, his senses both heightened and dulled at the same time.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” he responded with as much conviction as possible, but it still came out as a weak mutter.

“Did you hear what I said, kid?” Tony asked, sounding concerned.

“Uhh, huh? What?” Peter turned to Tony, who immediately stood up from leaning against the wall and frowned.

“You okay, kid?”

Peter didn’t get the chance to respond because right then the elevator juddered to a stop, the lights flickering before going out completely.

Tony cursed but Peter couldn’t hear him, his panic levels had gone through the roof and he was losing control of himself fast. His rapid breaths came in hoarse wheezes as the constricted feeling in his chest became a crushing weight, and suddenly he wasn’t in the elevator anymore but buried beneath the rubble of the Vulture’s hideout.

Peter cried out desperately for help, banging on the walls around him hard enough to leave dents until strong hands grabbed him by the arms.

“Peter. Look at me. You’re going to be fine, but you need to calm down.” Tony instructed firmly but gently. He was no stranger to panic attacks and easily identified it in the boy, quickly trying to get him under control before he got too bad.

Peter tried to listen but it was hard to focus on anything. His breathing became shallower and more erratic, making Peter feel faint and causing the panic to spike.

“Hey, hey, you’re alright. Just sit down for me, nice and easy,” Tony helped lower the boy to the floor so that he was sitting with his back against the wall with the older man kneeling in front of him.

“Just breathe with me okay, in and out, like this,” Tony demonstrated the technique over and over, hoping to finally get through to Peter. In the dim blue light coming from his arc reactor Tony saw that the boy’s pale face was sheeny with sweat and tears trailed down his cheeks, but his wild eyes were fixed on the device in Tony’s chest.

“That’s it, you look here,” he said tapping on the metal circle, “it’s not dark in here, we’ve got this. Just concentrate on the light and keep breathing with me, okay kid?”

Tony kept his hands on Peter’s arms as he continued with the breathing, rubbing his thumbs into the fabric of the boy’s hoodie in what he hoped was a comforting gesture.

After a few minutes Peter’s breathing, although it was still hitched and uneven, had slowed considerably and Tony felt relief flow through him. Peter wasn’t alright by any stretch of the word, he was still shaking like a leaf, but his breathing was better, and that was a start.

“Hey, that’s it. You’re doing great, kid,” Tony reached up to brush the tears away with the pads of his thumbs, swiftly replacing his hands on the kid’s arms and giving them a quick, reassuring squeeze. “Now I’m gonna see about getting us out of here, okay? So you sit tight and I’m gonna find the maintenance number,”

Tony had barely even begun to pull away when Peter grabbed onto him tightly, desperately.

“No, no, no, no, no, stay,” the words rushed out of Peter’s mouth, slurring together as his breathing picked up again.

Tony immediately stopped moving, “Shh, it’s okay, I’m not going anywhere,”

He knew he needed to find the number to call the guy to get the elevator moving again but the only thing keeping Peter semi-calm at the moment was Tony’s presence and the glow provided by his arc reactor, and he’d keep both things there for him if that’s what he needed.

Before Tony could ponder too long on how to keep Peter calm and get them out of there the lights came on with a chunk! and they began moving once again.

The second the doors opened on the seventh floor Peter shot out, moving faster than Tony had ever seen him move before. He got up and followed the boy out just in time to see him disappear into the stairwell. By the time Tony had made it up to the roof Peter was kneeling in the sunshine, panting hard but not from the exertion of running up the stairs. He carefully approached the boy, not wanting to startle him and slowly lowered himself to the ground next to him, waiting for him to settle himself down.

As soon as Peter was back to himself he was cringing with embarrassment - he’d just had a panic attack in front of Mr Stark, clinging to him like a frightened child! He was never going to live this down.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Don’t sweat it, kid, happens to the best of us,” Tony reassured him, placing a hand on his back and rubbing small circles comfortingly if slightly awkwardly, “I didn’t know you were claustrophobic,”

Though it was said lightly there was a definite undertone, one that suggested Peter was not getting out of this without telling Tony about it.

“It’s more of a recent thing,” Peter muttered reluctantly, fiddling with his hands in his lap and looking anywhere but at the man next to him.

“Since when?” Tony asked, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer. Obviously Peter had had a bad experience in a small and/or dark space recently and Tony didn’t know anything about it. How recent was ‘recent’? If it was before they met then there’s nothing he could have done about it, he reasoned, but if it was after? During the time he’d been keeping tabs on the boy? Tony’s stomach twisted unpleasantly at the thought he’d missed something big.

Peter exhaled heavily, “Since fighting the Vulture. He, uh... while we were fighting he... he knocked down the building and I... I was still inside it,”

Tony’s hand stilled as he stiffened, “What? Why didn’t I know about this? You’re A.I. is supposed to alert F.R.I.D.A.Y. when this sort of thing happens, how many of the safeguards did you turn off?”

Peter fidgeted nervously as Tony’s voice gradually got more annoyed, “I didn’t... I didn’t turn that one off, I... Karen didn’t tell F.R.I.D.A.Y. because Karen wasn’t there, she, I mean you... it was when I didn’t have the suit,”

Tony cursed himself with every swear in every language he knew. Of course something had happened after he’d taken the suit away, of course it had. He’d known about the final showdown between the two where Peter had saved his plane, but the boy had seemed fine, and Tony hadn’t looked any deeper than that assuming nothing was wrong. He wished his own idiocy hadn’t prevented him from finding out.

“What happened?” He demanded, needing to know the consequences of his actions.

“I confronted him in his warehouse,” Peter began, still not looking up from his hands, “he knew I wasn’t going to let him go, and he needed a way to stop me. He used his wings to break all the pillars so the building would come down on me and he could get to the plane without me stopping him. I was only under there for a few minutes, but...” he paused to even out his breathing which had picked up again, “... it was dark and heavy and I was stuck. I managed to get out and obviously I saved the plane in time but... I guess it just really got to me, being under there, you know?”

The pair were quiet for a moment before Tony spoke up, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Peter huffed, “I didn’t want you to think I was some scared kid who couldn’t handle it and take the suit back again. I’ll get over it, it’s no big deal,”

“Clearly it isn’t ‘no big deal’, kid. Look, after something like that I’d be more worried if you weren’t at least a little messed up by it. You were trapped under a building with no one coming to help you, that must have been terrifying, and it’s okay to still be scared. But we’re gonna work on it together until it isn’t a big deal anymore, alright? Cause you can’t just take the stairs for the rest of your life. And as for taking the suit back, that’s not going to happen.”

Peter sniffled and finally looked over to Tony, “It’s not?”

“Hell no,” Tony said, “You were great out there today kid, saved our asses a number of times, I’m not getting rid of you because of something we can work on and overcome,”

Peter nodded thoughtfully, “I want to, overcome it that is. I don’t want to be like this,” he gestured to himself, “every time I even think about being in a confined space,”

“It won’t go away overnight, but we can work on making it less of a deal in here,” he tapped twice on Peter’s temple, “until you’re in these places and you don’t even think about it,”

“I’d like that... thanks,” Peter smiled genuinely. It was a weight off his chest, in more ways than one, to finally have someone else know about it, and a great relief to know that Mr Stark didn’t think any less of him because of it.

“Don’t mention it, kid,”

A thought occurred to Peter and he turned suddenly to the man beside him, “Please don’t tell anyone else,”

“Not a word,” Tony answered immediately, “but we do need to tell your aunt where you got those bruises from,”

He stood and offered a hand to Peter, hauling the boy up from the floor before throwing an arm around his shoulder and guiding him back towards the stairs.

“Now, how about we tell her you were trying to lift something heavy and your hands slipped and you punched yourself in the face,” Tony suggested playfully.

Peter elbowed him, “Hey! What about we tell her there was a bee and you were screaming and flapping trying to get rid of it and you accidentally hit me,”

“You watch it, junior, or I’ll tell her your short ass couldn’t reach something off of a high shelf and you ended up dropping it on your face,” Tony pretended to be serious but inside he was glad that Peter was back to himself again enough to joke with him. He’d been really worried about him for a time but he was happy the kid had opened up to him and allowed him to help.

Tony kept up the banter as the made their way down to Peter’s apartment. He didn’t really care what story they ended up telling May, as long as Peter was alright that was all that mattered.


End file.
